I have to be honest with you: This isn't really archaic art. It's just some random stuff I started to draw one day, in the middle of a boring class. It's only that. And then again it's more than that. At first I started doing quick sketches of my teacher or the guys sitting next to me. And after doing this for almost a year I got better at it. I improved. They say practice will often cause that... a certain improvement. If that's the case, I'll continue holding pens and nibs.

May 21, 2012

Supercrooks # 2 - Mark Millar & Leinil Francis Yu

Leinil Francis Yu

The last time Johnny Bolt was arrested he spent years in jail. Now he’s a free man, but now he has decided to help his old mentor, Carmine and this time he plans to get away with the greatest heist in history. But to do so, he needs to recruit the old gang: The Ghost (world’s greatest cat-burglar), TK McCabe (the telekinetic), Forecast (weather-maker), Roddy and Sammy Diesel (the indestructible men) and at last, but not least, the Gladiator, the superhero that arrested Johnny Bolt the last time.

Convincing a group of retired super-villains to commit one last crime is not entirely difficult. Ghost is bored with his current life, TK McCabe is exploited in his job, and his wife can barely make enough money to support their daughter, Forecast makes a few dimes and quarters selling umbrellas on a rainy (he actually uses his control over the weather to create rain, but still, this business only gives him enough money to survive), Roddy and Sammy Diesel are making minimal wage, fighting against other washed-up super villains in box ring. They are all desperate to help, except for the gleaming superhero known as the Gladiator.

the indestructible men / los hombres indestructibles

Mark Millar revisits the potential of hope within the delinquent group. Here, the heroes are seen as arrogant bastards that are loved by the media but not by the people, while the former thieves and conmen are now losers looking for some sort of atonement. Winnicott said once that certain elements of antisocial behaviors often imply a modicum of hope. It may be slightly counterintuitive, but Johnny Bolt and his comrades pathological behaviors may signify a desperate attempt to regain that which is lost (according to Lacan, we’re always looking this ‘object a’ and we can never find it). "Taking" then becomes stealing, robbing, and cheating on others, and all of this often represents a striving to reclaim (or obtain for the first time) the lost object (‘object a’).

There is however something we shouldn’t forget about Lacan’s ‘object a’ is that it’s often confused with the object of our desire. Gladiator has always followed the Freudian law of copulation, marrying a pretty woman and having children. But in doing so, he has also neglected his true self. According to Lacan, the command that the superego directs to the subject is, of all things, "Enjoy!". Gladiator is the superego here, forever trying to keep in check the criminality of others. That which we believe to be most private and rebellious (our desire) is, in fact, regulated, even commanded, by the superego. And the most private desire in Gladiator’s heart is homosexual intercourse. For years, he has been meeting random men for bareback sex, and when Johnny Bolt was in jail he met one of his one-time lovers. Now, he has tricked Gladiator into meeting him, and as the two men sit in a Spanish café, something is made evident: Gladiator can’t survive the media scandal if the pics that Johnny Bolt has are released to the public. Gladiator can’t face the guilt of having her daughter learn in the news about his secret escapades. And he can’t accept all this because he himself is the embodiment of the superego (id est, guilt).

The second installment of Supercrooks was perhaps even better than the first one, and I’m absolutely sure that Millar will keep surprising us. Leinil Francis Yu’s cover is easily one of the best images ha has done in years, and the interior art is quite good too. Millarwold’s newest miniseries is everything you could ask for. __________________________________________

About Me

Comic books are my passion. They are as precious to me as the oxygen I breathe, and perhaps even more. The 9th art has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. And through the years, this passion kept on increasing, thus turning me into an active participant. I started as a reader and later on I became a full-fledged writer and artist. Indeed I’ve found the perfect way to have twice as much pleasure when it comes to comics: I can either read them or write and draw them. And I absolutely love doing both!